True Gentlemen

Starred review from September 15, 2017

The film Animal House (1978) has long shaped Americans' view of fraternity members as hard partying but ultimately harmless, nitwits. Yet there is a far more sinister side to "Greek life." This is where Bloomberg News editor Hechinger's book comes in handy. Using the notorious fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) as a case study, the author focuses each chapter on a different facet of the fraternity story. This can make for sobering reading, as Hechinger traces the racist and anti-Semitic legacy of many of today's traditionally white fraternities to the rape culture that pervades these institutions to such an extent that on many campuses, SAE stands for "sexual assault expected." Hechinger travels across the country to interview individuals at places such as the University of Alabama, where the SAE's century-old chapter has yet to "pledge" a black student. Although there are mountains of evidence linking fraternities to an outsized share of sexual assault charges and hazing-related injuries and deaths, college administrators have been ineffective at reining in "problem chapters." As Hechinger demonstrates, this has a lot to do with fraternities' fund-raising clout and lobbying power (including the political action committee FratPAC). VERDICT An exemplary work of investigative reporting. Recommended for all academic libraries.--Seth Kershner, Northwestern Connecticut Community Coll. Lib., Winsted

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Starred review from July 15, 2017
A chilling expose of American fraternity life.At colleges and universities across the country, fraternities espouse high ideals of brotherhood, honor, pride, service, loyalty, and collegiality. They claim to build men, and they inspire profound loyalty among their alumni and fierce protectionism among their undergraduate cohorts. As Bloomberg News senior editor Hechinger, a two-time winner of the George Polk Award, demonstrates in this riveting, infuriating book, these organizations often fall well short of those high ideals. Focusing on Sigma Alpha Epsilon, one of the most prestigious, popular, and controversial fraternities in America, the author reveals a culture fraught with myriad ills. Many will be unsurprising to those who have attended college, but others are shocking. These include dangerous abuse of alcohol and drugs; dehumanizing hazing rituals; sexual assault, rape, general harassment, and other horrifying treatment of women; rampant elitism; and both obvious and covert racism. The author shows how these problems come with access to politicians and lawyers and other moneyed and influential men. SAE embodies all of these damning flaws. It has experienced the most deaths of all such bodies among its undergraduate members in recent years, and its members have been involved in assault and rape to the point where many female students, when asked about the fraternity, immediately respond with a common play on its Greek letters: "Sexual Assault Expected." In 2015, the University of Oklahoma chapter was caught on video singing an ugly racist song. Hechinger documents all of this and more in an expose that, given the influence of fraternity alumni, requires tremendous courage to pursue. In the final chapters, the author offers possible ways forward for SAE and fraternities more generally that might alleviate the ongoing crisis, almost all of which would require a deep commitment to a drastic reduction of alcohol consumption, the elimination of hazing, and other steps that national SAE leaders have begun to tackle. A highly disquieting but important investigation of one of the most influential subcultures in American higher education.

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